Gun Control and Crime

[piper17 1]

Brady Rankings: More Gun Laws, More Violent Crime

Friday, February 01, 2008


In January, the Brady Campaign released its annual "State Report Cards," scoring the states according to their gun laws.

Once again, the Brady rankings clearly demonstrate that states that have the most gun control tend to have the most violent crime.

Brady says that a state could get a perfect "100" if it would: limit the frequency of gun purchases; prohibit private transfers of firearms; require gun show attendees to sign a ledger to be provided to the police; prohibit the sale of firearms that do not engrave a serial number on fired ammunition and require registration such firearms' purchasers; license and regulate firearm dealers at the state level; prohibit handguns that do not have "smart" gun features; prohibit detachable-magazine semi-automatics and some pump-action rifles and shotguns; allow the arbitrary rejection of Right-to-Carry permit applications; allow local jurisdictions to impose gun control laws more restrictive than the state legislature; and allow the criminal prosecution of people who use firearms in legitimate self-defense.

Since most states do not have these kinds of laws -- gun control having been rolled back and rejected at the federal, state, and local levels in the last 15-20 years -- Brady gave most states "failing" scores. Forty-two states received 28 points or fewer, and only one state received a score higher than 63--California.

But, as usual, Brady's scores correlate inversely with states' crime rates. Using crime data published by the FBI for 2006, the most recent year available:

* California, the state that has the most gun control and received Brady's highest score (79), has violent crime and murder rates that are 14% and 23% higher, respectively, compared to the rest of the country.

* Brady didn't bother giving a score to Washington, D.C., which has more gun control than California and even higher crime rates.

* Most of the 38 states that Brady gave 20 or fewer points to, have total violent crime, murder, and robbery rates that are below the national rates.

* For states that have total violent crime, murder, and robbery rates that are below the national rates, Brady gave average scores of 19, 19, and 14, respectively.
* For the 10 states with the lowest total violent crime, murder, and robbery rates, Brady gave average scores of 12, 12, and 9, respectively.


Copyright 2008, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[christelsabine 1]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-shooting3feb03,1,2635594.story?ctrack=1&cset=true

How about Illinois' ranking?

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[piper17 1]

Illinois, especially Chicago, has stringent anti-gun laws.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[christelsabine 1]

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Illinois, especially Chicago, has stringent anti-gun laws.

So do we. Stringent conditions at weapon laws.

The very rare shootings as well as very few gun crimes here [in my country] do confirm our gun laws are working fine.

Here we go again ....

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[Douva 0]

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The very rare shootings as well as very few gun crimes here [in my country] do confirm our gun laws are working fine.

If I recall my history, your nation's gun control laws were of great benefit to your nation's government in November of 1938. Gestapo agents met with virtually no armed resistance when they went around torching synagogues and Jewish owned businesses.

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[christelsabine 1]

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....
If I recall my history, your nation's gun control laws were of great benefit to your nation's government in November of 1938. Gestapo agents met with virtually no armed resistance when they went around torching synagogues and Jewish owned businesses.

What a substantial argument by digging around in history - how old were you in those days?

Perhaps, it's just a lack of arguments.

The world now is 70 yrs older, that needs a bit more attention.

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[lawrocket 3]

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....
What a substantial argument by digging around in history - how old were you in those days?

Perhaps, it's just a lack or arguments.

The world now is 70 yrs older, that needs a bit more attention.

Are you saying that there are no bad governments anymore? No further genocides? Tha a Krystallnacht wouldn't ever happen any place?

Frankly - I don't look at Europe as a shining beacon or morality and virtue BECAUSE of those two great wars last century. You may choose to forget about Europe's recent past. Those who forget are doomed to repeat it.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[BIGUN 1,053]

One only need be ten years old and Darfurian to understand the most recent genocide; or twenty-five and Kurdish before that, and from around the world; one only need be less than 40 years old to find....

Yakubu Gowon (Biafra, 1967-1970) 1,000,000
Leonid Brezhnev (Afghanistan, 1979-1982) 900,000
Jean Kambanda (Rwanda, 1994) 800,000
Suharto (East Timor, West Papua, Communists, 1966-98) 800,000
Saddam Hussein (Iran 1980-1990 and Kurdistan 1987-88) 600,000
Tito (Yugoslavia, 1945-1987) 570,000
Yahya Khan (Pakistan, 1971) vs Bangladesh 500,000
Savimbi (Angola, 1975-2002) 400,000
Mullah Omar - Taliban (Afghanistan, 1986-2001) 400,000
Idi Amin (Uganda, 1969-1979) 300,000
Yahya Khan (Bangladesh, 1970-1971) 300,000
Mobutu Sese Seko (Zaire, 1965-97) ?
Charles Taylor (Liberia, 1989-1996) 220,000
Foday Sankoh (Sierra Leone, 1991-2000) 200,000
Slobodan Milosevic (Yugoslavia, 1992-96) 180,000
Michel Micombero (Burundi, 1972) 150,000
Hassan Turabi (Sudan, 1989-1999) 100,000


There is a sliding scale of definitions for "tryanny," but let's agree that it it is about absolute power and control. Therefore, since tryanny can exist from the single crime of one to another or on a mass scale; we have two choices... allow people to defend themselves and arm virtually everyone or put all the guns of the world in a smelter and issue phasers set to stun.

The record would seem to be pretty clear. Those with that absolute power and control; from criminal to dictator can be placed in check when faced with one not afraid of those means of power and control.

Nobody has time to listen; because they're desperately chasing the need of being heard.

[christelsabine 1]

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....
Are you saying that there are no bad governments anymore? No further genocides? Tha a Krystallnacht wouldn't ever happen any place?

Frankly - I don't look at Europe as a shining beacon or morality and virtue BECAUSE of those two great wars last century. You may choose to forget about Europe's recent past. Those who forget are doomed to repeat it.

Your post sounds quite barmy.

I mean what I said. Nothing else. How you personally decided to interprete what I posted - I don't care.

If actually there are bad or better governments on earth or will be in future, we'll see. Anyhow, that will not be decided on SC.

How everyone deals with its own past may remain his own choice. Could you ensure that the US never again will drop atomic bombs on outlandish cities?? (Now that is idiotic too, Christel!)

It's all about guns and gun crime and neither your nor my past.

And oh!: Guns, weapons - JohnRich, are you in vacation or just fell into hibernation??

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[Amazon 7]

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The world now is 70 yrs older, that needs a bit more attention.

Yes we could hope the world learned.. but it did not...right there in Enlightened Europe all thru the 1990's.... as Yugoslavia split aprt into its ethnic parts the world got to witness the same attrocities yet again

[piper17 1]

Your low gun crime rate probably has more to do with the caliber of people in your country rather than stringent gun laws...

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[piper17 1]

I'm not sure the people of several Balkan countries would agree that such events are only found in the past. You can also take a look at some recent events in Africa, Southeast Asia etc.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition"...Rudyard Kipling

[christelsabine 1]

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I'm not sure the people of several Balkan countries would agree that such events are only found in the past. You can also take a look at some recent events in Africa, Southeast Asia etc.

Yep. But Balkan made its own rules which nowadays, f. e. ended in free elections in Belgrade. JFI: Do not blame the collaps of (a former) nation(s) like Yugoslavia on us, please ....

So, where now is the link to gun control, gun crime, Reichskristallnacht, uprisings after Kenia's elections, earthquake in Ruanda?

dudeist skydiver # 3105

[akarunway 1]

Quote

Quote

....
Are you saying that there are no bad governments anymore? No further genocides? Tha a Krystallnacht wouldn't ever happen any place?

Frankly - I don't look at Europe as a shining beacon or morality and virtue BECAUSE of those two great wars last century. You may choose to forget about Europe's recent past. Those who forget are doomed to repeat it.

Your post sounds quite barmy.

I mean what I said. Nothing else. How you personally decided to interprete what I posted - I don't care.

If actually there are bad or better governments on earth or will be in future, we'll see. Anyhow, that will not be decided on SC.

How everyone deals with its own past may remain his own choice. Could you ensure that the US never again will drop atomic bombs on outlandish cities?? (Now that is idiotic too, Christel!)

It's all about guns and gun crime and neither your nor my past.

And oh!: Guns, weapons - JohnRich, are you in vacation or just fell into hibernation??

Let sleeping dogs lie.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[Douva 0]

Quote

Quote

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If I recall my history, your nation's gun control laws were of great benefit to your nation's government in November of 1938. Gestapo agents met with virtually no armed resistance when they went around torching synagogues and Jewish owned businesses.

What a substantial argument by digging around in history - how old were you in those days?

Perhaps, it's just a lack of arguments.

The world now is 70 yrs older, that needs a bit more attention.

If you're going to brag about the effects of gun control in Germany, expect someone to point out the obvious.

Germany never had significant rates of gun crime, violent crime, or homicide; therefore, Germany's thirty-six-year-old system of gun control does not deserve the credit.

In the two decades immediately following the passage of Germany's strict 1972 gun control laws, the homicide rate in Germany remained relatively constant. The violent crime rate during that time period almost doubled. That twenty-year period of constant homicide rates was followed by a significant spike in homicides in the mid-nineties and an overall decline in homicides in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The U.S. homicide rates and violent crime rates have seen much more significant declines during the past thirty-six years than have the German homicide rates and violent crime rates.


"In strictly regulated Germany, gun-related crime is much higher than in countries such as Switzerland and Israel, that have simpler and/or less restrictive legislation." (U.S. Library of Congress, "Firearms Regulations in Various Foreign Countries, May 1998.")


Excerpt from ProtestEasyGunsLIES.com:

When quoting gun crime statistics from other countries, gun control advocates like to point to nations that have very different governments and judicial systems and that lack the gun culture and open borders of the United States. It's easy to point to the low crime rates in Japan or England, two small island nations with easily controllable borders, no significant gun culture (in part because they lack the frontier past of the United States and because they offer very little big game hunting), and judicial systems which afford citizens fewer rights than in the U.S. The British and Japanese definitions of "due process" are very different from the one Americans know. And the British and Japanese systems of government are more totalitarian than the U.S. system. Residents of Japan and England are treated more like subjects than citizens. Actions such as government censorship and warrantless searches, which would never be tolerated in the U.S., are deemed acceptable, under certain circumstances, by the people and governments of Japan and England and, to a lesser degree, Canada.

England never had significant gun crime, even before the implementation of gun control. Gun control was first implemented in Great Britain not because of any great need to curb gun violence but because, in the early 1920s, the British government feared the possibility of a working class uprising, similar to the Bolshevik Revolution that had just occurred in Russia. Gun controls were strengthened in the mid-1960s, as a way of appeasing public outcry for a reinstatement of the death penalty, following an incident in which three police officers were murdered with illegal revolvers. Because the revolvers used to murder the officers were already heavily regulated, the British government chose to respond to this crime by implementing shotgun control (despite the fact that recent studies had indicated that gun crime in Great Britain was under control and that shotgun controls would have no practical effect). The current gun control laws now enforced in England--virtually banning civilian ownership of firearms--were implemented in the late 1980s, following a mass murder in which a licensed gun owner killed eighteen people with a handgun and a semiautomatic Kalashnikov (AK-47) rifle. Because England lacks the strong gun culture of the United States, a strong media outcry for stringent gun control was met with little resistance. Though this massacre was the first and only time a centerfire, semiautomatic rifle was used to commit a murder in England, it led to the confiscation of every centerfire, semiautomatic rifle in the nation. The only protest from what passes for a gun lobby in Great Britain was an insistence that the government pay the owners of confiscated guns a small fee (a fraction of the actual value of most of the guns) for each firearm confiscated.

Gun control advocates tend to focus on the NUMBER of GUN crimes in countries with strict gun control, rather than focusing on the RATE of VIOLENT crimes in those countries, for two very simple reasons. First, focusing on crime numbers, rather than crime rates, allows gun control advocates to give the appearance that there is a much greater disparity than there actually is between the level of violent crime in America and the levels of violent crime in much smaller nations, such as England. Also, focusing on the low numbers of gun deaths in countries with strict gun control allows gun control advocates to avoid mentioning that many of these countries, such as England, have actually seen an increase in their overall homicide rates, since the implementation of strict gun control laws. And most of the countries, like Australia, that have seen a decrease in their homicide rates, since the implementation of strict gun control laws, have not seen as sharp a decrease during that time period as the United States of America, where gun control laws have remained virtually unchanged.

In the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, the homicide rate in England was 1/10th the homicide rate in the United States. In 1987 English citizens were shocked by a mass shooting at a public market. In 1989 American citizens were shocked by a mass shooting at a fast food restaurant. England responded by implementing the strict gun control laws currently in place. Americans chose not to implement stricter gun control. By the early ‘90s, the homicide rate in England was 1/8th the homicide rate in America. Today the homicide rate in England is 1/4th the homicide rate in America. Since the implementation of England’s strict gun control laws, England’s homicide rate has gone up; whereas, America’s homicide rate has gone down.

In 1989 the Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice published a report showing that the Canadian homicide rate remained, for the most part, stable in the decade following the passage of the 1977 law requiring citizens to receive a Firearms Acquisition Certificate from police before purchasing a firearm.

If you compare 1976 homicide statistics to 2006 homicide statistics, both the U.S. and Canadian homicide rates have declined by 33%. Strictly based on those numbers, there is no evidence that the Canadian gun controls implemented in 1977 have accomplished anything.

Gun control advocates never mention countries like Mexico and Russia, in which gun control laws are VERY strict and murder rates are three to four times higher than in the United States. In truth, you can no more compare the United States to England, where virtually nobody has a gun and the violent crime rate is very low, than you can compare the United States to Switzerland, where virtually everybody has a gun and the violent crime rate is very low.

For more information read The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies by David B. Kopel:

http://www.amazon.com/Samurai-Mountie-Cowboy-Controls-Democracies/dp/0879757566/ref=sr_1_1/105-2214740-6201234?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1194822919&sr=8-1

The introduction can be read here:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0879757566/ref=sib_dp_pt/105-2214740-6201234#reader-link

I don't have an M.D. or a law degree. I have bachelor's in kicking ass and taking names.

[ExAFO 0]

I sooo want an AK-47, but they're murder on left handed shooters with their configuration...

Illinois needs a CCW Law. NOW.

[warpedskydiver 0]

Rivet a deflector onto it.

at the rear of the safety/dustcover.